Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) acquired the U.S. restaurant reviews specialist Zagat back in 2011 for $151 million in an effort to expand its push into the rapidly growing local businesses. In 2009, Google tried but failed to acquire Yelp, Zagat’s biggest online competitor, for $500 million (Helft, 2009).
The acquisition of Zagat was one of 57 deals completed by the online giant in just first nine months of 2011. Google’s other acquisitions in 2011 include ITA Software for $676 million in cash in April and Daily Deals, a privately held German online coupon company, for $114 million in cash in September. Google said it completed 54 other acquisitions in 2011 for roughly $502 million. During that same period in 2010, Google completed 37 deals for $626 million, excluding the acquisitions of Slide, AdMob and On2 Technologies, for which Google paid a combined $983 million (Anonymous, 2011).
Six years later, Alphabet Inc’s Google is exploring a potential sale of Zagat, Reuters reported based on anonymous sources.
According to Baker, Dave, Toonkel, and Love (2018), “Google has held informal talks in recent months with multiple companies about offloading Zagat, asking not to be named because the matter is private… Google’s asking price is not known, and there is no certainty it will agree to sell Zagat.” Google has declined to comment on a possible sale.
Google closed 2017 as the second most valuable company in the world after Apple. It gained some 32% plus from the stock with the market cap of over $750 billion in 2017.